#even when you're izzy critical

[suffersinfandom]

A Summary of The OFMD Meta (Part II)

This is part two of an incomplete summary of A Meta-Discussion Of The Subtext by meratrishoslee (Mera) on AO3 (linked to, as the author requests). I’m trying to stay impartial and keep all of the important bits in.

This chunk includes chapters nine through fourteen, which is mostly an analysis of the entire show (stopping at the end of S2E7 because the chapters on the finale are massive, lol). The overarching thesis of this bit is this: “Ed’s the face, head/mind and body of Blackbeard, Izzy is Blackbeard’s heart/soul -- as well as the heart of the show itself.”

Other posts Part I

Chapter 9: Either Madness or Brilliance

This chapter is a screenshot-heavy analysis of OFMD season one “as seen through the lens of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl,’ with specific emphasis on what this means for Izzy Hands and his character arc.”

Izzy is compared most directly to Captain Jack Sparrow. “He often tells the truth but no one listens or believes him, because at first he seems more than a bit ridiculous. [...] But he still saves people anyway, even people he doesn’t know; that’s part of how we know he’s a good guy deep down even when he seems like a bad guy at times.” He is “the Betrayed Pirate, because, as we find out later, his crew betrayed him because they wanted something gold and shiny more than they wanted him.”

Ed is primarily compared to both Will Turner “the Tragic Young Man”)  and Captain Barbossa (“the Bearded Pirate”). Stede is, of course, Elizabeth Swan (“the fancy protagonist”). 

“...While our Tragic Young Man does have some (considers, then shrugs) chemistry with our fancy protagonist… the drift compatibility he has with the Betrayed Pirate is just off the charts. Sometimes they act like two parts of the same body... and the Tragic Young Man does have a habit on several occasions of throwing himself between a physical threat and a person he cares about.” 

Chapter 10: The Hidden Heart

“Ed’s the face, head/mind and body of Blackbeard, Izzy is Blackbeard’s heart/soul. How do we know? Because when Izzy moves, the plot moves. When Izzy leaves, the plot stagnates or outright stalls dead. And Edward makes a fair amount of effort to keep track of Izzy, both to keep him safe and under Edward’s control.”

The chapter is an episode-by-episode walkthrough of season one with proof of Izzy-as-the-heart. Basically: everything is horny, Izzy is emotion-driven (although he hides it well, as one must when living a life filled with so much violence and abuse), and OFMD is Izzy (the heart) becoming more emotionally intelligent. 

At the end of S1E4: “Ed’s just proven he doesn’t need Izzy – either to participate in his plans, or to love him. He could have let him go, right? He had Stede now. The mind has lied to its heart, convinced it to stay and keep loving and giving all this while – because it’s required to pump the blood of the myth called Blackbeard, and move the plot of the show called Our Flag Means Death.”

Ed opens his jacket for Stede (in a way he never does around Izzy) and tells him to stab him. Izzy thinks that Ed is betraying him by having sex with Stede (or by having subtextual sex with Stede). He’s wounded and angry, and that kickstarts the rest of the season. 

“Why can’t/don’t Izzy and Edward fuck, textually or subtextually? Why is all the tension and longing so one sided – and if Edward’s so bothered/disgusted by Izzy’s longing for him (as some other meta writers out there on the internet have attempted to suggest with varying degrees of success), why does he permit the relationship to continue at all -- and even work to keep Izzy near him despite his attempts to leave? Well, that’s coming up in a later meta. (Hint: it's HIV/AIDS related bed death.) But it’s certainly part of the unnatural, forceful separation between the head and the heart.”

In S1E6: As Blackbeard’s heart, Izzy can’t actually kill Stede in the duel. “But he’s not admitting that defeat to himself yet so he has to go through the entire pantomime of the fight.”

“On one level, the textual level, Izzy’s trying to drive Stede from the ship and out of Edward’s life. On another subtextual level, however: the heart’s moving through the return advances of the mutual seduction way faster than the head is ready to do.”

Izzy is banished from the boat. “...If Edward had just had the capability to be honest with Izzy from the very start, they might have avoided most of the tragedy. Because really? An overwhelming amount of the things Izzy says aloud to Edward can be subtextually read as: I am trying to get you dicked down how you need to be, even if I’m not the one who can do it for or to you.” 

We don’t move the plot along much in S1E7. Izzy’s gone, and the story can’t progress without him.

In S1E8, Calico Jack “is the thrown dagger that strikes the most true, and goes the farthest toward separating Ed and Stede. Forward momentum, healing, and growth all come to a dead stop here as Calico Jack does emotional manipulation on a level that Izzy could only aspire to at this stage in his evolution.” Izzy sends Jack as “a poisoned love letter” doing what it can to keep Ed safe.

On Ed and Stede’s kiss: “It’s an adolescent kiss, chaste and closed-mouthed and awkward – it’s not an erotic kiss in the slightest. Whereas everything (yearning glances, poses, swordplay, etc) with Izzy is frankly erotic as fuck and I don’t think we can blame that just on Con being Con…”

After his return to the ship, Ed doesn’t want to be Blackbeard anymore. Izzy is terrified, and he “[channels] all the fear into anger to use as a weapon to bring the mind back into compliance for the sake of their shared survival.” Getting Ed back to Blackbeard is a matter of keeping both of them AND the crew alive.

Ed doesn’t have his bare hands on Izzy when he’s choking him, but “Izzy does place his bare left hand onto Edward’s bare right as he’s being choked which, if I’m correct about the HIV/AIDS coding for him (and I’m confident in the evidence I’ll bring in the eventual extended meta conversation about it) is its own understated threat in return: what’s in me could kill you, too.”

“I’ll conclude for the moment with this: after so many rewatchings of the show, Edward flinging himself backward like a scalded cat feels excessive. It’s disgust at the mingled lust and joy and affection on Izzy’s face in the moment – and it’s so much more than that.”

More meta on Ed’s attitude towards Izzy in this scene:

Ed shifts back and forth on his feet, stepping in the tiniest little amount again. [...] why would Edward do that if he's actually afraid of Izzy?  Taika's a good enough actor to have chosen to flinch away instead, to reinforce the dialogue and textual energy of the scene. When the body language doesn't match the dialogue, it's a sign that the subtext is increasingly relevant. But Taika doesn't flinch away at all during the rest of this scene.  None of his body language serves up ‘terror’ to me -- all of it, when viewed with the knowledge of S2 and the lens of Izzy as HIV/AIDS-coded, serves up grief and loss.

Look at Edward's face. Look at the tears rising up in his own eyes. It’s not because precious little meow meow princess sweet as a peach Ed Teach is actually scared of Izzy, his own first mate for who knows how many years. We've seen Izzy angry at Ed in scenes before and if anything, Ed's been perplexed or even amused by it. 

(Total sidenote: there’s a difference between letting Edward get to be soft and gentle and vulnerable and display a range of emotions and enjoy fine things and feel tenderness and love… and completely woobifying/infantilizing a fully adult character capable of making his own choices, who happens to also be a man of color. Because frankly that second option comes across as more than a little gross to me. I hope that my writing always knows the difference and stays on the correct side, because I work to try to make sure that doesn’t happen.)

Continuing on: “We see Izzy as his “gaze travels all over Edward's face in a last caress of longing, back and forth between his lips and eyes at that close distance. Then Izzy leaves the scene immediately, before anything else can happen. Even the things he might want – especially the things he wants. Because he can’t ever let them happen, in order to keep Edward safe.”

The crew begins to chant (“it sounds almost like a heartbeat”). Ed reverting to the Kraken persona “is due to not one but two open romantic griefs and losses in close proximity,” and “the mind of Blackbeard moves on to protect itself, as it always has. Not from some fear of the crew now as I’ve seen in various lukewarm takes online… but from the possibility of ever being vulnerable again.”

Ed throws Lucius overboard. “Next he goes to hobble the dark heart, to maim and lame it, to keep it obedient and subservient again through terror and pain. He can’t kill or discard it entirely, because its emotions and bloodflow powers both Blackbeard himself and the plot of OFMD… but he can make it pay for its transgressions against him. And he certainly does… gloved in leather to protect himself from Izzy’s blood and flesh, in a scene that is overflowing with brutality couched in sexual framing.”

Jim (the killer) and Frenchie (the mender) are both mirrors of Izzy in some way.

Chapter 11: The Sacred Heart (Part 1)

“...In OFMD Season 2, Blackbeard’s heart is undergoing incredible growth and maturity through the application of terror and agonizing adversity – and by the end of it is bared and shining as the Sacred Heart of the show.”

When Izzy is the “hidden heart” in season one, he hides his pain (and a lot of people miss that said pain exists at all). “Only Izzy’s rage and jealousy is in the text; some emotional intelligence and/or sufficient media literacy to permit one to parse the show’s subtext on some level is required to understand the rest of his motivations. The lion’s share of this heart’s love that we can understand is on laser-beam narrow focus: Edward Teach, and the two-part entity of Blackbeard that this pair creates between them.”

In season two, “the Sacred Heart’s pain and fear are centered from nearly the first moment we see him in private; they overflow his previously immaculate control and are expressed almost entirely against his will. But because he’s expressing his emotions and more and more overtly protecting/shielding the crew from Blackbeard’s increasingly unhinged mind as well as all other lesser threats, his love for the crew is more obvious moment by moment also.”

Additionally, “Izzy’s rampant lust from the first season is dampened as well due to his wounds (loss of a foot/leg is often intended as symbolic loss of the genitals) so his expressions of affection to the crew are almost entirely platonic/agape love [...]. The final result is an opening of Blackbeard’s heart to the entire crew, where it accepts them all and is accepted by them in return.”

In Stede’s dream, Stede gives Izzy “a non-consensual stabbing.” He and Ed are reunited, but nothing too amorous can happen because “if the heart of the story is dead, there can be no blood pumping, no erections, and the head/mind itself will eventually die also. The bottom line is there’ll be no sexy stuff happening without it.”

In the wedding party fight, Izzy is shown placing himself between Jim and Frenchie and Ed -- protecting them from Ed. Izzy’s entire purpose without Blackbeard is protecting the crew.

Izzy is upset when Ed threatens to fire Izzy: “Izzy knows that his current position to Edward is one of scapegoat and punching bag. He’s blamed for anything that goes wrong, whether or not it’s truly in his power to prevent or fix it – and the price for every failure is another body part removed and most likely force-fed to him. If he’s not there to take that abuse… someone else will just have to take it instead.” Again, he’s protecting the crew.

Jim tells Izzy that his relationship with Ed is toxic, “and they’re right on a textual level (he’s abusing you) as well as a subtextual level: it’s often not healthy for two people to remain bound so closely into one entity (a two-part creature known as Blackbeard) but especially when one side of it has become entirely toxic and is regularly maiming the other.”

When the crew comfort Izzy, no one touches his bare skin.

Izzy returns to Ed, delivers the crew’s response, and asks Ed what Izzy is to him. “Almost every single line Izzy has in Season 2 is overflowing with subtext and this one is no different.The surface meaning is: what are we? What is our relationship? What do you truly want from me? The subtextual meaning is: have you forgotten I'm Blackbeard's heart? Have you forgotten that to kill me is to kill yourself? Don’t you understand that you do to me what you don’t have the courage to do to yourself: you kill me one inch at a time? You’re trying to make me stop loving you [...] and I can’t, because it’s a heart’s purpose to love.”

Izzy is afflicted with love. He is “quiet and sincere and utterly chaste,” until accidentally invoking Stede. Ed storms above deck and Izzy tries to rein him in.

Before he mentions Stede, Izzy is certain he’s going to die for speaking the truth, “because Blackbeard’s heart has always been the first to admit out loud what Blackbeard is feeling, long before his head will actually be brave enough to speak it.”

With Izzy out of commission, Frenchie is Ed’s next “victim.”

Jim gives Izzy one of his few skin-to-skin touches, and it’s to silence him when he’s screaming at them to kill him. Very tragic. It’s also Jim who tells Archie that Izzy is “their dick” (or their heart, since a functional heart is required for a functional dick). 

Importantly, “Jim’s also an Izzy mirror, may I remind you: Jim initially didn’t want to truly join the crew either, and had something of a minor battle to be accepted for who they were.”

Ed discovers Izzy: “He strolls in slowly, standing over an unconscious and completely vulnerable Izzy Hands – and gazes down at him for a moment before the scene ends. OOooh that had my heart pounding in terror and fury on first watch!” 

When Ed talks to Izzy, he’s looking directly at him (as he so rarely does). He tells Izzy that he dreamed he killed him “(When we talk about death, it’s sex. When we talk about sex, it’s death)”. Ed gives Izzy the gun.

“Parse Izzy’s expression here: that’s longing. That’s a man on his death bed looking at the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen in his life, that he thought he’d never get see again. So much so that, just before the shot cuts away, his eyes light up and he begins to smile sweetly. What is Izzy seeing? [...] Full on direct eye-contact with a fuck-me stare and the muzzle of the pistol hovering at lip level.”

In short, it’s a very horny scene.

“If Izzy’s not willing to let him die by giving a subtextual blowjob… Ed’s going to offer something else. He’s gonna let Izzy take him from behind.” But Izzy ultimately refuses after struggling with the power he has been granted over Ed.

Izzy tells Ed that he’s tired of cleaning up after him. “Side-note: I’ve seen some lukewarm takes in various spots on the internet that mean old Izzy was overstating his labor on Ed’s behalf, and I just want to remind everyone that at this point we have seen precious doe-eyed meow meow princess Edward only make even the most token of efforts to clean up his own mess exactly twice…”

Ed leaves Izzy with the pistol and the understanding that Izzy (the heart) will kill himself. Ed hears the gun fire and, thinking his heart is dead, he can admit the truth: that he loved Izzy the best he could. “Body language on the second half of that statement [best I could] suggests to me he knows he’s lying or minimizing, although I can’t pinpoint enough of the ‘why’ consciously to screencap it. He tosses it off as if it doesn’t matter, and that I can understand – in this moment, he’s only lying to himself.”

On to Ed’s final suicide attempt. Why does he tell Jim and Archie to fight to the death if he plans on killing them all anyway? “I think he is impelled to, by his current personal fixation. I think right now the mind of Blackbeard can’t see love without obsessing about destroying it. He carved off bits of his own loving heart one chunk at a time, because of it. Now that he’s been shown Jim and Archie have developing feelings for each other on his ship of death, he has to take the moment to destroy them first… Even when it gives his heart the chance to drag itself out of the pit of the grave and finish its sacrifice to stop him.”

Izzy returns during the reprise of Run From Me, “specifically the soaring siren vocals and bolero heartbeat pulse of its bridge and outro: the loyal heart is still pounding, still pumping blood to the rest of Blackbeard and the plot.”

The crew take Ed down “and Izzy, knowing what must be done to save the crew, making this final personal sacrifice on their behalf, stands by and lets them kill Blackbeard’s brain.”

Stede finds and boards the Revenge to find the crew eating a dead bird and “better than they had been under Ed’s reign of terror, but not anything close to their best.”

And then soup. “Now on the deck of the Red Flag, Izzy’s crew gets to have their soup. Notably, neither Izzy nor Lucius have any soup – yet everyone else did, even eventually Ed while down in the gravy basket, served up to him by his own former captain. So, subtextually, the bright heart and the dark heart of the show have not allowed themselves to be fed and warmed and comforted.”

When Stede starts to ask questions, Izzy responds with hostility in a bid to get Stede to focus his ire on him, once again protecting the crew. 

Stede asks who stabbed up his portrait and Izzy lies. Why? Because “the tender heart protects the head too, even though it’s currently beyond being hurt. Izzy’s protecting Edward’s legacy and the memories he leaves behind in Stede: this is Izzy as Ed’s scapegoat/Sin Eater, taking Edward’s sins on his own back to leave Ed utterly blameless in Stede’s mind as much as possible.”

Izzy continues to antagonize Stede to keep Stede focused on him. He’s eventually reduced to honesty and tells Stede that Ed tortured the crew (“the pain and suffering of the crew is the highest crime in Izzy’s mind”).

With the “doggy heaven” line, Stede reveals how close he was to Ed, and “that Stede heard every bit of this betrayal and forgave it, and continued on with love for Edward – to the point of dueling Izzy, to the point of fighting to stay with him despite Calico Jack’s manipulations, and everything that arrived afterward.” He realizes Stede might love Ed as much as Izzy does.

Izzy said he could never do that. “Con chooses to shut his eyes during this terribly tender, utterly vulnerable admission. Izzy can’t bring himself look at Stede, even merely the side of Stede’s face that is currently presented most toward him, while he bares so much of his soul.”

Why does he lie? Izzy won’t betray the crew by confessing, and he wants to buy them time to get away from Zheng Yi Sao. “There’s a third possible purpose: that it’s soothing to Stede. It’s a sweet little lie, and it lets him have a little hope for a while. In fact, if Izzy can be clever and discreet while dealing with Edward’s burial, Stede might get to spend the rest of his life chasing the fantasy that Ed’s still out there somewhere… and it’s possible to live your whole life loving a dream you will never touch again.”

When the crew is imprisoned after Ed’s body is discovered, Frenchie sits on Izzy’s left (the side of the hand with no glove). “In a more general way, Izzy’s positioned himself to block the cell door. Anything that tries to come through it will have to come through him first. Additionally, he’s switched the side his crutch is on; it’s not at his left hand to be used to support himself but at his right hand to be a bludgeoning weapon.”

Stede comes down and Izzy immediately speaks, “establishing himself as the target of blame.” Izzy insists that he is the one who’s responsible for Ed’s death, and he’s willing to be Stede’s scapegoat as well.

“And last… on some intrinsic level, Izzy Hands feels like all of this horror and pain is exactly what he deserves, from start to finish – the lack of love and affectionate touch, the physical and pseudosexual abuse, the agony on all levels of existence, even a final ignominious death itself as a traitor: give me your worst.”

Stede leaves. “We get a shot of Izzy shaking his head just the tiniest amount, and tears standing unshed in his eyes. He still doesn’t have Bonnet engaging how Izzy thinks he’s should – or rather, has been primed by months of enduring abuse to expect. Without a focus to Stede’s grief and anger firmly on himself, how can Izzy ensure he can adequately protect the rest of his family?”

“To stare deeply into Izzy’s gloriously beautiful pyrrhic self-sacrifice is to be able to look fully and directly at my own, reflected.”

After the escape attempt, Stede denies Izzy any gratitude for his apology. 

Chapter 12: The Sacred Heart (Part 2)

Izzy as heart continues and the analysis moves on S2E4. He is isolated and drinking, undoubtedly trying to numb the agonizing pain from his recently-amputated leg, ill-fitting prosthetic, and all of the additional bodily pain that would create. Mera suggests that, “if [they’re] right about Izzy being HIV/AIDS coded, [...] there’s every possibility that the extensive stress on his body from everything he’s endured lately (culminating in an amputated limb and a suicide attempt that at least rattled his cranium) has him experiencing an overall nerve pain called neuropathy.”

We can also infer that Izzy has “a lot of complex emotions about Edward’s return, no matter how necessary it is to the shared being of Blackbeard. If love could bring him back from the dead… why didn’t Izzy’s love manage it? Now that he’s returned from the dead… will the horrors resume? Stede and Edward have each other again… and Izzy’s on the outside once more, but now permanently damaged. Who would want him now?”

Stede comes by and does his best to be kind to Izzy, and “Izzy – suffering, isolated, terrified for a number of reasons once more, and drunk as a skunk… is asked to provide the deadlock-breaking vote on whether or not Ed should be banished.”

Izzy remains physically closed off to Stede. He’s vulnerable, and he associates captains with pain. When Stede says, “You’ve already murdered him once, seems like a pretty good payback,” Izzy visibly flinches. He’s glad that the blame is still entirely on him, but he’s still hurt. Izzy says that the rotten leg must come off, because:

Everything for Izzy right now is related to his maiming… and Edward’s toxicity was the rot that was eating the crew before Stede returned. 

If Ed can be removed from the ship, a few of the worst fears in Izzy’s life will be remedied: Stede most likely won’t hurt the crew the way Edward did; Stede most likely won’t hurt Izzy the way Edward did; Edward won’t be there to hurt the crew or Izzy; and, last but not least, Izzy won’t have to watch Stede and Edward fall in love all over again – this time as a changed, maimed, damaged, and (in his own mind, at least) defective man who is now unable to leave under his own power…

Izzy is offscreen for a bit, but it’s important to note that Lucius gets hit in the head with a sandwich, much like Izzy did in season one.

“The very first time we see Izzy after Edward’s banishment… and now it’s HIS vest that’s fully undone, his collar that’s unbuttoned, and his cravat and ring loosened from its usual high, tight position on his throat. Both of these men have been armoring against each other.”

Izzy saws the legs off of the headless unicorn. “Hurting people often hurt other people… and yet, our Sacred Heart has only taken out his pain on the unfeeling, inanimate object of the figurehead.” Truly a selfless hero. “Again, everything right now is reflecting back in Izzy’s mind to his own maiming: a figurehead is supposed to protect the crew. It failed to protect the crew, therefore it didn’t do its job. The price of not doing one’s job is the loss of limbs.”

Izzy’s prosthetic fails and the rest of the crew watch him with “horror and concern,” and “they move as one unit at last, immediately to try to surround Izzy and help him back up,” but he resists and crawls away. “This is disturbing, and it’s meant to be. This is heart-wrenching, and it’s meant to be. It’s the lowest point of the Sacred Heart – to be alone in all it suffers – and the blatant evidence of that pain and sacrifice is what draws the crew together in union again.”

In the next Izzy scene, he’s drinking alone in his bed. “Now that the unicorn figurehead shares his maiming and has been ‘punished’ for not doing its job, there’s only one entity left on board that he can still permit himself to harm, to vent the poison and rot festering inside his soul.” That person? Izzy’s reflection. 

“While Edward took his own pain out on anything that’d hold still long enough (mostly Izzy)… the karmic buck stops with Izzy Hands. He knows he’s wounded and toxic; he’s isolating to keep that toxicity from harming his family. [...] Izzy has seen the process of other people distributing their own damage to innocent new victims, just passing it on down the line; he has experienced it directly. He has decided he will have none of it himself. Izzy is resolved that it ends with him.”

The crew leave their gift at Izzy’s door and the attached note makes him weep. “His sobs are powerful enough that they continue to shake his whole body even as he draws himself upright again.” He calls them “cocksuckers, but “this response is intended to be subtextually read as a positive thing, indicating how touched Izzy truly is by the gesture.”

In Izzy’s next scene, he’s at the foredeck alone with his new leg. He pulls out the note and “the soundtrack sings: this world isn’t big enough to keep me away from you… from you… The song is right on two levels; even now, Blackbeard’s mind is returning to Blackbeard’s heart, courtesy of Stede… and Izzy will not ever be parted from the love of the crew.” Izzy allows himself a smile and a seagull (Buttons) goes by.

Buttons is a mirror to both Ed and Izzy. He’s weird, he has long hair, Ed wears his birdshit-covered jacket, the full moon is important to him, he’s a skilled first mate, “his mouth can be pretty poisonous, and his bites will leave permanent wounds,” and he changes a lot during the show. “Bottom line: if Ed and Izzy are two bodies that comprise one entity (Blackbeard)… Then Buttons is two entities (the Moon and the Sea)... that are united to some extent in one body.”

The Moon and the Sea change in regular and predictable ways; the Moon affects the Sea (tides), but the Sea doesn’t have the same power over the Moon. “The Sea is also the original source of all life here on Earth. The Moon is bright and remote and beautiful and sterile. It has a light side that’s always turned toward Earth due to its rotation and revolution matching up, and a dark side that we don’t often get to see (without some serious effort).” The Sea is barely explored (subtext) and the Moon is known (text). 

Before Buttons turns into a bird, he tells Ed, To love the sea as she must be loved… requires change. “To love Izzy in the way that Izzy must be loved… Edward will also have to change. He’s been given his directive. We don’t see it completed during Season 2, nor will I speculate how this will manifest in Season 3. What I will say is that this show has been and remains fantastic about showing the many different and equally valid forms that love can take, and I am excited for anything that results in Izzy Hands being truly loved.”

The next episode opens on Ed’s apology. His victims are there, and Izzy? “He is off to the side and not having to deal with Edward face-on. His bare and deadly left hand is toward the captains, with its threat that continues subtextually but has never yet textually been explained.” He’s ready to defend the crew from Ed if needed. 

Ed delivers his “weasel-word non-apology.” It’s no good, but “the queer writers room as well as Taika himself with his specific cultural heritage are absolutely aware of how this comes off – superficial, insincere, and absolutely infuriating – and it’s intended to come off that way. It’s fucky on purpose, and not ‘bAd wRiTiNg.’”

Izzy seems calm, but he’s clearly not buying Ed’s apology. The blocking puts Olu in a protective position in front of Izzy, and “Frenchie and Lucius [are] getting to carry a lot of Izzy’s emotions here: Frenchie [by] being entirely unconvinced/checked out and Lucius [by] being overtly acrimonious by giving the finger.”

Lucius asks Izzy if he’s fine with it (the apology); this is the first time anyone has ever asked Izzy how he feels about something. There’s some ridiculous sexual tension and Izzy, “relaxed, open and almost entirely at ease,” graces Lucius with a nickname. “In the universe of OFMD this [the cigarette thing] is definitely an oral exchange. It’s at the very least a kiss by proxy but an argument could even be made that it's even something subtextually as significant as a blowjob…”

In the next Izzy scene, he’s shirtless and training with Stede’s good candles. His breathing is labored. Why? “Previous exertion, dealing with residual pain from his new and improved prosthetic, psyching himself up and/or oxygenating his blood for the strike he’s about to make, possibly a level of arousal from the pseudosexual nature of ‘swordplay’ in this universe – subtextually, he’s half-undressed and dancing with his own ‘saber’ in the dark with some candles around for some nice ambiance…”

A behind-the-scenes still shows Izzy’s back covered in scars. (“A few people elsewhere on the internets have mentioned how Izzy’s back looks like that… and yet Edward’s back is clean enough for a full back-tat and… I’ve got feelings about that also. Gotta wonder how that happened. Gotta wonder why.”) Mera says it’s a subtextual allusion to Jesus -- Jesus who was flogged, as opposed to Judas, who was hanged.

Stede enters and cleverly addresses Ed as “Blackbeard,” in keeping with Izzy’s preferences. Stede tells Izzy that Ed claims Izzy taught him everything he knows, which Mera is “about 75-80% sure” is a lie. Stede is trying to be encouraging and provide positive feedback. 

We move on to the training montage. “Izzy’s sardonic and still a bit brutal while attempting to teach fighting, rope-swinging, and target shooting… but never is he directly insulting or says anything like ‘you’ll never get it.’ He’s letting pain be a teacher to Stede also: don’t stop and ask questions, just hit. When you try to swing on a rope the wrong way, it’ll burn your hands. And when Stede’s missed shot brings a sail down, there’s no screaming insults, no degradation. Izzy’s being remarkably patient here.”

The training turns into discussion, with “Blackbeard’s Sacred Heart really starting to open up to Stede, both textually and subtextually: it’s quite a romantic heart, underneath all the leather and scars. The will to be contrary about this whole weird tangled emotional mess is starting to subside.” 

The crew lines up at the rail to inspect the ship they’ve sighted. The blocking is, as ever, important; Izzy stays “as close as possible to the least experienced member of the raid: Stede Bonnet.” He “also put himself between Frenchie and whatever might be aboard waiting to meet them.”

Lucius approaches Izzy while he’s whittling on the deck. Throughout the conversation, “Izzy’s so gentle in tone and expression, as calm as a bodhisattva; he never looks away from Lucius during any difficult moment. There's no flinch to tell us that he's still in any emotional pain.” 

Izzy claims that a shark took his leg; Ed has a shark tattoo on one arm. He smiles and says, “Served me right, too.” “This is Izzy again as Edward’s Sin Eater: he can put that pain and blame somewhere else, somewhere that it won’t weigh on Ed’s soul, and he does. It’s in the carving. (Its also a silent expression of his pain to match the prophecy referenced during the same relative timing beat/scene in The Last Temptation: ‘He has borne our faults; he was wounded for our transgressions -- yet he opened not his mouth.’)”

Izzy gives Lucius the shark he has been carving. “Izzy put his pain and trauma into the chunk of wood and worked at it for the entire duration of the episode when, for comparison, we don’t see Black Pete in S1 spend any time carving Lucius’s new finger. We’re given the visual textual signs that Izzy’s putting a lot of care and effort into this creation.”

During the red suit fiasco, Izzy is seen hanging out in Stede’s quarters. He’s relaxed and casual; he’s at ease with Stede. 

Stede gathers the crew to put an end to the red suit situation. Izzy is behind, watching; “he feels absolutely no need whatsoever to be close to the front to interpose his body between the captain and the crew protectively. He knows that Stede won’t be violent with them at all.” Izzy is also in Stede’s eyeline so he can offer guidance.

Chapter 13: The Sacred Heart (Part 3)

The next episode is Calypso’s Birthday. “This episode has been called Izzy's swan song, and respectfully I'd like to disagree.  This is when we see the Sacred Heart of OFMD most triumphant, most open, most freed, and most overtly/directly loving and loved in return.”

Ed is seen scanning the horizon and thinking about all of the awful things he’s done, beginning with his father’s death. (“Wow. Izzy shows up in there a lot. Like, disproportionately much.”) Izzy approaches, bottle in hand, immaculately dressed and styled but clearly a little drunk. Ed keeps his back to Izzy. “I think he’s staying turned away partially out of shame but also in an attempt to help Izzy feel safer during this interaction.”

Izzy absolutely didn’t mistake Ed for Roach; he’s not that drunk. He’s holding the bottle in his gloved right hand with his left closer to Ed. This is important because “as much as possible Izzy will keep his right side toward whoever he’s speaking with: it’s safer for them and also lets him access his sword easiest. So [...] right now Izzy’s walked up and chosen where to stand for this interaction: with his death-marked left hand toward Edward, empty of the bottle he’s carrying and still dangerous.” Ed trusts Izzy not to kill him; Izzy is still uneasy.

A new angle. Ed and Izzy, “the estranged partners,” are closer than they’ve been in five episodes. When Izzy calls Ed a “mopey twat,” his tone holds “mild animosity.” This is the closest he’s gotten to provoking Ed since season one.

Ed takes the bottle from Izzy (with his ungloved right hand) and drinks. Izzy is out of frame. “...For me, subtextually, it feels as if that removal of the conversational partner is intended to entirely visually replace Izzy Hands with his proxy. He’s no longer a person, for the duration of these frames: he’s the bottle itself, held in Edward’s bare grip.” It’s significant that Ed’s lips touch a place Izzy’s just were without disgust or hesitation. It’s sensual: “Ed’s taken a kiss for himself from Izzy’s bottle – and Izzy, his eyes shining with tears, fully knows it.”

Ed is yearning. Izzy is yearning, but “then does what he does with all big emotions: covers them up and vents them safely with an expletive. [...] But he carries Edward’s return kiss to his own mouth nonetheless: love you, too.” “Why is Edward willing to do something (trade saliva, even by proxy) with Izzy that Lucius reacted so strongly and negatively about, less than a full episode ago?” There was a point where we didn’t really know how HIV/AIDS spread. “Edward knows the rules about Izzy’s disease/curse. Edward knows how to stay safe; they’ve gone however long this separation has lasted without Ed ever catching it or dying from it.”

We next see Izzy when he approaches Wee John, applying makeup for his Calypso look. Izzy gives the makeup setup a “hungry,” longing look. 

Izzy sings at the party. When it starts he’s not entirely at ease, as evidenced by “the stiff body language and uncomfortable rigor of Izzy’s arms out from his sides, the shy and downcast gaze trying not to look at anyone just in case someone’s laughing at him.” His look included red, gold, and wavy lines, all evoking Sacred Heart imagery. 

“When he finally looks up, Izzy glances over at Edward, who does not look at all surprised to hear Izzy’s marvelous voice – and, if you want to hurt yourself today as some of us sometimes do, you can wonder how many years it's been since Edward heard it last.”

Izzy snuggles up to Wee John at the party. “Izzy’s got his right gloved hand under his left palm; he’s pressing both hands into John’s wrist but the glove’s between the naked left hand and John’s skin, keeping them separate. I think the depth of shadow under his fingers indicates they’re not making contact either.”

At the song’s climax, Izzy is off-centered in frame. Why, Mera asks, “would you put one of your three main characters so fucking off-center?” Look for the subtext. “We see Izzy’s deadly, death-marked ungloved left hand leave the shot early on… and stays out as he holds the rest of the note, as if it doesn’t belong in the same visual realm as the rest of Izzy's entire body and the concept of ‘love’. As of these last few paragraphs, I’m no longer questioning myself on the concept that Izzy's HIV-coding was completely intentional. I know for sure I’m crazy… but now I'm also 100% certain I’m not wrong.”

A cannon goes off. There’s been meta written about how “Ed always jumps in front of Stede during physical threats and Stede always destroys people who hurt Edward emotionally, which reminded me that Izzy has always been the third and quieter option: ‘figure out where the threat's going to be, put my body between it and the people I love, and always be ready to kill it -- no matter who or what the threat is.’”

After Lowe is dealt with, we see the whole crew, with “the Sacred Heart front and center, right hand toward his captains, death-marked left hand toward the threat [Ed], Frenchie and (further back) Lucius tucked safely behind him.” This pose is also very Last Supper. 

Izzy sings a reprise in French. “He’s singing to the people he loves in French, which for cinema’s purposes is the language of love. I know that we have the Doylist reason for two versions of this song because Con was originally concerned he wouldn’t be able to learn the French version well enough to do it justice… but I also think it added something from the Watsonian side: this is a deeper expression of the love he displayed before.”

Elsewhere, “with his heart returned, emotionally reunited with him, and vigorously expressing the love inside it at last… Blackbeard’s head finally finds the rest of its two-part body willing and able to accommodate his new lover.” Stede and Ed kiss directly -- a mirror of Ed’s indirect kiss with Izzy earlier in the episode.

“...It’s Izzy and his singing that takes us through the credits and claims the episode almost entirely for the Sacred Heart – and at the end his family joins in with him, raucous but affectionate and wholly good-natured. Then after they’ve cheered and applauded, midway through the credits [...] the crew chants “One more song! One more song!” Izzy cheerfully answers “I’ve got one more song!” to general acclaim. … But we haven’t yet heard it during Season 2. Food for thought.”

Chapter 14: The Sacred Heart (Part 4)

“In this episode [S2E7], we will get to see Izzy as the show's Sacred Heart evince a personal yet non-sexual love to both of the show's other main characters, answering each of their needs.  We also do get to see one of Izzy's flaws repeatedly reinforced: that he tends to project his emotions, self-expectations, and personal traits on other people, for better or for ill. This serves to try to prepare us for his deepest example of projection in the final episode... that is also his last act of love to Edward.”

Ed sends his Blackbeard getup to the bottom of the sea, weighed down by a cannonball (the second time a cannonball has been used to kill Blackbeard). 

Back in the captain’s cabin, Izzy throws back the curtain to expose Stede and Ed. (Once again, someone says “Jesus” in response to Izzy doing something.) Izzy isn’t bitter, he’s merely reporting to his captain. He acknowledges Ed for the first time with his “well and truly docked” line. Izzy leaves.

“Couple of notes here. While yes, Izzy’s just needled both these men with his observation of their intimacy – it’s also some of the most good-natured jealousy I’ve seen him display [...]. There was no rage in his presentation as we’ve watched him evince before, not even repressed down so tightly that he would otherwise vibrate with it. But also… I think this is another of Edward’s fuckboi moments, being a bit shitty about his ex/estranged partner in an attempt to ingratiate himself more with his new one. (And it puts my hackles up that Ed treats Izzy's inability to have safe intimacy so cavalierly, but what else is new?)”

In his next scene, Izzy approaches Ed as he’s observing the fishermen. “Izzy’s returned to standing with his gloved right hand toward Edward; his bare left hand is angled to be on his sword hilt just below frame. The blocking and his posture says he’s feeling safe once more, and has forgiven Edward as much as he could be expected to.”

Izzy’s expression is somber when Ed says he feels “fucking great” about putting Blackbeard to rest. Ed fully meets Izzy’s eyes, and Izzy smiles. “This is the Sacred Heart giving such an intimate, incredible gift: loving in a way that can also let go. [...] Izzy at this time, his emotional development completed at last, can truly love Edward no matter what they are or become to each other – without requirements or demands.”

Ed pulls away and Izzy’s expression settles into grief. “The union of ‘Blackbeard’ will, Izzy thinks, dissolve and fade away. And they’ll have to find a new, healthier way to relate to each other – or maybe even leave each other completely behind, once and for all.”

Ed and Stede reunite and it quickly turn to fighting. “Astoundingly quickly, for someone who got such good dicking down just last night and was feeling strongly enough about it this morning to throw away his old life in favor of it. Or at least… he appeared to throw it away. Textually, he threw it away. And Blackbeard’s Sacred Heart, in an act of loving sacrifice, told him to listen to his feelings – no matter where they might lead.” But with Ed “disconnected from Blackbeard’s (now) more emotionally intelligent heart [...], he has only his own internal immature heart and its adolescent feelings to guide him – and he’s terrified about it.”

Stede doesn’t listen. “I’ll be 100% that bitch right here: Izzy would be fully listening, fully focused and engaged. Both of these men spin up too far in their own heads; they’ve never had to ignore their first adrenaline-soaked knee-jerk reflexive thoughts in order to coherently receive and respond to what someone else is saying/doing in an emotionally challenging moment.” Ed and Stede unconsciously use all kinds of “underhanded psychological tricks” on each other during the argument. 

Izzy and Stede talk (mirroring Izzy’s talk with Ed earlier), but only after Izzy uses his own formidable (not related to Blackbeard at all) power to order Stede’s companions away. Izzy is compassionate. He tells Stede that he balances Ed out, which may be some projection on Izzy’s part. 

“The sincerity here is killing me in the best possible way. Where Izzy’s previous conversation with Ed was almost sparse – they know each other so well and they’ve thrown so many words at each other across the years, they’re now down to the only ones that still matter – this one is verbose and more actively encouraging. And even here in this noisy bar that he doesn’t particularly like, he’s leaning forward to be sure he’s heard. His expression is open and caring, without a trace of sarcasm or insincerity. He remains kind on every single textual and subtextual level.” A feat, considering how tired and in pain Izzy must be by now.

Izzy tells Stede he was shot for saying he loves Ed, which is, of course, not true. “On one level it reads to me as a conflation of the idea of Stede Bonnet and love, in the mind of Blackbeard's heart. On another level it was a statement of love for Edward in the moment that was even weightier (and therefore unfortunately had more consequences) than his own love confession: you love him and I know it, so let's talk about it; let's find a healthy way to deal with it together and move forward. That's what got him shot -- the fact that Blackbeard's heart was willing (as it always has been) to admit to love far, far sooner than Blackbeard's mind was.”

Izzy puts his bare hand on Stede’s thigh (it’s fine, Stede is protected by leather pants). Izzy is seated between Stede at the direction from which any possible threat might come, right hand free to draw his sword. It’s not a perfectly defensible position.

Izzy tells Stede to get back to the ship. This is one of “many times Izzy’s been right and just… no one fucking bothered to listen to him or take him seriously.”

Stede confronts Zheng Yi Sao before Izzy can position himself to stop him. Izzy must decide to trust Stede in this; he’s smiling by the time he takes his spot at Stede’s back. Izzy realizes that Zheng Yi Sao is winding Stede up, and he’s not convinced that Stede, even with his remarkable luck, can win against her in a fight.

When Yi Sao drops Steak Knife, Izzy knows it’s best to make a run for it, “and if he wasn’t exhausted and in a fair amount of pain, he perhaps could have interceded in time and tried to broker peace. But Stede’s healthy, non-disabled, and full of vigorous venom; on this occasion he beats Izzy to the punch.” 

They’re all kicked outside to brawl. Izzy is positioned between Jim and Lucius, with Frenchie on Lucius’ other side. He’s clearly exhausted and in pain. This is interesting because, “after the end of S1, Con says [Izzy[ is ‘a little bit frightened’ of Jim, and ‘confused as fuck’ about Lucius – and here, in the penultimate episode of S2, he’s being supported and upheld by both of them in an affectionate fashion.”

Zheng Yi Sao’s ships explode. “Then a cannon ball comes arching out of the night, filling the frame headed toward the left -- therefore toward Stede, Zheng, or (less likely) Roach.”

On to the next!

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Alright, so there's been a lot of chatter about some of the most common racist takes in the fandom lately, and I know most people aren't engaging in good faith but I'm gonna spell some things out anyway. Here's a handy-dandy White Fan's Intro to Racist Fanon 101

Why is it racist to depict Ed as uncontrollably violent?

Because he's not actually depicted that way in the show. OFMD goes out of its way to depict Ed's relationship with violence as complex and intensely traumatic for him. Because he has so many hangups around violence, Ed is one of the least violent characters in a show full of violent characters. He is always shown giving people many chances before they're able to push him into reacting with violence.

Even if you think you're just doing a character study on a guy who is really very complex and nuanced, please take the time to consider if you're assigning more weight to Ed's violent actions than those of other characters or assuming he's worse than he actually is (for example, Ed never physically hurt the crew during his kraken spiral, just Izzy. His crime was being a shitty boss, not going on mindlessly violent rampages).

What do other common fanon depictions of Ed that are racist look like?

The biggest ones are depicting Ed as untidy/messy, as illiterate, and as needing a white man (most often Izzy) to clean up after him. I hope I shouldn't have to spell out why these are racist, but please keep an eye out for them in the fanon you consume so you can be critical of how you respond when they pop up.

Are you saying that all Izzy fans are racist?

Liking a character is morally neutral. Insisting that the viewpoint of an antagonistic character is the lens through which the show should be understood, though, especially when that antagonistic character's whole deal in the first season of the show was trying to control the behavior of the brown lead so he could gain power for himself, however...

Just please consider - why do you find Izzy's tears more deserving of sympathy and compassion than Ed's?

But my hot take/fic/meta doesn't say anything about Ed's skin color!

It doesn't have to. Most of the racist takes/fic/meta out there don't mention Ed's skin color explicitly. Racism doesn't just look like saying "this character is a brown man so he's bad." Everyone who grows up in a racist society (that's everyone on the planet, btw, you included) has biases to unlearn, and those biases impact how you interact with the world around you, including with the media you consume.

The thing is, OFMD isn't a subtle show. It's very consistent with telling us who Ed is, how he responds to situations, and why he behaves the way he does. If you find it easier to throw all that aside in favor of believing what a white antagonistic character tells you about him, then you should really take a bit to examine that.

And here's the most important thing to keep in mind:

This is not about you.

Trust me, it has to be pretty damn bad for fans of color to call out racism in fandom. Every time we do, we know we're gonna harrassment and just some truly awful shit in our inboxes. But you, random white fan who Did A Racism? No one is out to get you. No one thinks you're an awful person for including a racist trope in your stuff, we just wish you'd examine it so we can make this fandom a better place for everyone.

I have had amazing discussions with white fans who saw my posts on fandom racism and wanted a sensitivity read or a check so they could fix an instance where they uncritically included a racist trope. But most people who make similar mistakes will just double down and insist they didn't do anything wrong, and that makes fandom a worse place for all of us.

Fans of color deserve to feel safe and included in this fandom, and we're just tired of feeling like we have to beg to get some circles to see poc as people. You can do your part by being critical of these tropes and your reactions to them when they pop up.

[naranjapetrificada]

No, you're not "secretly evil" if you write certain ships and tropes and with certain plot or genre conventions. Tag appropriately and play in the gd sandbox.

Thing is though.

If you uncritically (as in "critical thinking", not "you have to criticize the thing") write things into your fic that reinforce endemic problems in fandom (and society) like racism, it might reflect unexamined biases that reinforce external shit that makes fandom less safe for everyone.

This all goes back to that divide between people who take it as a personal moral failing or an indictment of their character when someone says they've behaved in a ____ist way and the people who understand ____ism words to relate to larger, structural dynamics that aren't about individual morality.

If you uncritically write an OFMD fic where Ed is uncontrollably violent or illiterate or unable to groom himself, a reader might take that to mean that you have some unexamined biases about race to unlearn.

If you uncritically sideline characters of color in favor of making white characters get together, a reader might take that to mean you have some unexamined biases about race to unlearn.

If you uncritically write an OFMD fic that celebrates Stede embracing the kind of traditional, toxic masculinity that characters like Izzy and the Badmintons represent, a reader might take that to mean that you have some unexamined biases about gender to unlearn.

And they could be right. That doesn't mean you're "secretly evil" because your moral character is not even the topic of conversation here. It just means that you're living in this same shitty fucking system as the rest of us, beset by constant social and political and physical reinforcement of the dynamics that system wants to perpetuate, and that there are behaviors that indicate you might be helping to perpetuate that system.

Not all objections are censorship or purity culture or anything else like that. It's not wrong for people to point issues out when they see them. Especially if they're not tagging you, or derailing the comments on the fic in question, or harassing you with unsolicited messages. Especially in their own spaces, whether those spaces are a public blog or a private chat.

And it will continue to feel necessary to me to make caveats like this to "don't like don't read" as long as people continue to be so reactive and defensive about this stuff. Because as many people as there are out there willing to (correctly) drop reminders that writers are real people and fictional characters are not, it would be nice to see someone say the same thing about readers. No, the situations you put that fictional character in aren't going to harm them (meaning the characters), but it's certainly possible to reinforce racism or misogyny or homophobia by perpetuating biases that turn fandom into a hostile place for people of color, women, queer people, people with disabilities, and so on.

[adickaboutspoons]

I object to the term "whim"

In episodes 4 and 5 of the second season, there's a lot of throwing around of the word "whim." Ed and Stede both argue that they were just a whim to the other, Stede concludes they they are both "whim-prone" and that whim-prone people shouldn't run off to China together, and Ed cites their "whim-prone"ness as a reason to take things slow as they start to rebuild their relationship.

And I know we all like to joke about U-Haul failboats in love, but they aren't whim-prone. That's not what's going on here.

The first time on the show that we hear the word "whim" is in s1e4, when Izzy says "For years, I've followed your every whim, I've managed your increasingly erratic moods, I've massaged this crew when they were worried about your judgment." But from what we see of Izzy's interactions with the crew, he's not a massager, he's a sledgehammer, and the crew respect Blackbeard a hell of a lot more than they respect Izzy. Ed's moods don't read as "erratic" at all if you pay attention to what he's responding to; he's an emotional guy, for sure, but mostly even-keeled until highly provoked. And as for "following [his] every whim," Izzy can barely follow orders as given - committing insubordination at least twice that we see; not telling Stede that it was Blackbeard that wanted to meet him in s1e3, and flat-out ignoring Ed's "we're not doing this" in s1e6 when he challenges Stede to the duel. So I don't see Izzy as a reliable narrator when he suggests Ed is "whim-prone" - it might look like that to him because he doesn't try to understand Ed on his own terms, but it is v. much a construction that Izzy is imposing on Ed; not an objective character trait Ed possesses. After all, you don't get a reputation for being "history's most brilliant tactician" if you're not, at the heart of it all, a planner.

Stede is also a planner. Mary accuses Stede of abandoning his family on a whim, but that's also inaccurate. Thanks to all the hard work @nicnacsnonsense did in her marvelous 1st season timeline video, we know that SIX MONTHS elapsed between Stede proposing with his model boat that they go to sea at the anniversary debacle and the night of Mary's apology when Stede had already committed to actually leaving. That's not a whim - that's plenty of time for serious deliberation. It LOOKED like a whim from the outside because of their disastrous communication failures, but that doesn't make it true. Unabandoning his family was not a whim either - Chauncy was the catalyst, but only because he created a high-pressure situation that validated all of the insecurities we'd seen Stede struggling with all season; guilt over abandoning his family, and his crater-bottom self-esteem that the people he loved were better off without him. Even in season 2, we see more of this long-game behavior, where Stede takes his drudge job in towels and elevates it by applying scent; a move that LOOKS whim-prone from the outside, but primes him for success when it comes time to escape, because it means he knows the guards are used to deeply inhaling the scent of the fresh towels he gives them, and is thus he is able to trick them into chloroforming themselves.

There are times in the 1st season where it might LOOK like they are being whim-prone, but for the most part, those things are mostly time-critical circumstances . The impulsive decision to go to the French Party Boat? The invitation was for that night, so it's not like another opportunity like that was just going to come along. Stede's impromptu Fuckery? He'd JUST been introduced to the concept that morning, and the ships on which he wanted to try it out were three days away. If you'll recall, Ed actually tries to talk him out of going through with it with such a short turn-around time, and likely would have succeeded if Izzy hadn't interveined to further his "Kill Stede Now" agenda. The Treasure hunt? Stede was anxiously scrabbling for ANYTHING to keep Ed's attention (AFTER he confirmed there were no oranges for sale, not even for ready money) because Ed said that his plans for the day included "planning for the next adventure" and leaving. Act of Grace? Signing away ten years of your life for a man you've known for a month IS a lot, but the alternative was letting Stede be executed. Running away together? I'll give you that China was quite the absurd swing, but they WERE in jail for all intents and purposes - no sense staying longer than absolutely necessary, and there theoretically could have been time for re-working the plan once they were just away had circumstances not arisen.

So while I think it's fair to call the boys whimsical with their love of dress-up and lovely perfumed things and theatrics and tasty sugary treats, I wouldn't say whim-prone is an accurate descriptor (and the fact that they are accepting that it is makes my heart crack wide open for them, because it's evidence that they're still both uncritically absorbing the labels applied to them by people who don't really understand them at all), nor the problem they need to address.

Their real problem is actually the exact opposite of flitting from whim to whim; that, once they've committed to something, they are all in, 100% ride-or-die. It's why Ed resigned himself to going down with the ship when it turned out he'd miscalculated the date instead of trying any evasive maneuvers with the fog to give them cover. It's why, when Stede didn't show at the docks, Ed went full pillow fort until Lucius was able to talk him around into life going on without Stede. It's why Stede threw himself into trying to be all the things he thought he'd failed to be as a husband and father when he came back to his family, and was committed to staying, even though it was making him miserable, until Mary tried to murder him.

Ultimately, the solution for both these conditions is the same - slowing down. But it's not a matter of making sure this is serious and not just a whim for either of them; it's a matter of taking the time to understand exactly what it is that you're committing to. So I object to the term "whim."

[avelera]

I feel like one unexpected side-effect in the (slight) uptick of queer ships becoming canon (seriously guys it's so slight if you look at the actual numbers) is learning how often slash fandom doesn't actually want the baggage that comes with their ship becoming canon.

I mean, of course they want it. The fandom wants the confirmation that they're not delusional, that they're not mocked, that the sparks they sensed between two possibly-queer characters is real.

But the side-effect of a ship becoming canon with anything more than a kiss to mark the end of the story is that it might become canon not in the way you wanted.

So long as the characters are in the will-they-won't-they, you can imagine what their first time would be like. You can imagine how they act in a relationship together. You can imagine the tone of the relationship.

You can imagine it in ways that are incredibly personal and meaningful to you.

But the minute a ship becomes canon at a point where the story still needs to progress, you're going to get divergence from the way you imagined it going.

They're going to bicker about things you never imagined would be a point of contention between them in the story, that it might have even been meaningful for you that they had never fought over previously, possibly because the story just didn't have the time for them to fight over that beforehand. Or perhaps this writer leans more into interpersonal conflict as a plot point, where you preferred the couple facing an external threat. There's as many ways to imagine the tone of a relatinship as there are people in the world.

They're going to have a different first-something than you imagined. First kiss, first date, first time sleeping together. For it to be canonical it has to be committed to the page which means it has to be set. Maybe you thought it would be awkward where it was smooth, or smooth where it should be awkward. Maybe you though the kiss would be a bigger deal to them than the sex or vice versa. Maybe canonically they flub the romance of that first time for the sake of comedy. Now that's canon too. You can ignore it with fic, obviously that's what fandom is about, but now it's AU, not "what-if?".

There might be interruptions to the love story, breakups, fights, separations, that aren't the end of the relationship but do mark an action beat that is necessary to keep the story moving and interesting. Unless the last canonical beat is them riding into the sunset together, it's inevitable and usually marks the end of a story because domestic fluff where nothing happens isn't actually a genre that can be sustained in original fiction without a plot.

Look, as queer ships become canon, this is going to be inevitable. OFMD S2 was the most egregious example I've seen recently of everyone who had engaged with the fandom having a different version of how they wanted Stede and Ed to behave once they were together. I couldn't help but laugh when I saw that the fandom fervency shifted from the canonical established queer ship (after it had the audacity to move beyond the establishing kiss and then the will-they-won't-they phase of reuniting), to the potential of a character who was never even canonically established as queer (Izzy) because everything about his story still lived in the potential land that fandom thrives in. And I don't entirely mean that as a criticism, just as a bitter irony!

Fandoms don't necessarily want a ship confirmed, they think they do, but that potential which was so enshrined and infuriatingly drawn out with regards to queer ships for so long and that's only just barely breaking just a little from when it was outright forbidden to show queer characters getting together (and it still is in most of the world if you go by population, and heavily discouraged by the mainstream powers that be in most places even where it's not banned, the limitations on international markets you get from having canonical queer characters even as side characters still makes it prohibitive for big budget flicks, since it means cutting themselves off from those markets in terms of recouping costs.)....

ANYWAY the point I'm making is that a few queer ships becoming canon has led to a perhaps predictable but depressing amount of outrage when 1) a popular queer ship doesn't become canon, but that's been building for a while now, but also 2) when the popular ship becoming canon doesn't become canon in the way the fandom wanted. Which was also inevitable but goddamn as a veteran of fandom for over two decades now, I can remember not that long ago when your queer ship becoming canon just not in the way you hoped would have been a damn nice problem to have!

[iamadequate1717]

Stede in Season 1

After seeing some rather awful bad faith takes flying around after 2x7, I'm throwing out a beginning defense of Stede Bonnet (loml). It seems insulting Ed's fish is the worst thing that anyone has ever seen, and it really seems to be a continuation of anti-Stede sentiments within the fandom and viewing him as a prop for Ed (and sometimes Izzy) rather than his own character. Fanon Stede is ever patient, ever kind, ever devoted to his partner, and I'm seeing a lot of shock that Stede is a flawed, imperfect person with his own needs, that he says things in the heat of the moment, that people are seeing a less interesting character than what DJenks and friends have created. Stede's a fucking lunatic and I like it.

I'm going to break this into a few posts as I ramble on to the end of 2x7. I have big thoughts on the ending, but I need to lead up to it! I am going to try to be as brief as I can up to the lead up, but I'm not happy with certain parts of the fandom right now (it's just a spat, love you all).

(If you haven't seen the "I hate Stede!" and "I'm so mad at Stede!" posts after 2x7, I am so, so jealous of how you have curated your social media experience.)

Part 1: Season 1

I'm going to note first that this is really a more rambly companion piece of this:

In time budgeting, most of Stede's character introduction and motivations are built into 1x1 through 1x3, but you all know it is a common refrain of these episodes: "Just wait for episode 4!" (OK for newbies, but huge side eye from me with people who have watched multiple times.) Episode 4 is when Act 2 of 3 of Season 1 begins. The foundations of the story have been laid, the cast has been fully assembled, and we enter the rising action (i.e., the meat) of the story in 1x4. It is not that Blackbeard alone improved everything: it was the story structure itself that shifted.

Preferring Act 2 (ep 4 to mid ep 8) and saying Act 1 was bad and "boring" is a disservice to the story and really robs yourself of the payoff action in Act 3 of Season 1 (and now Season 2), in particular with regards to Stede's character. It's a TV show, so you don't have to like all parts or watch it equally, but if you're going to criticize Stede and what he does, you can't ignore the part of the story that tells you the why of everything.

For example, we see people saying Prince Ricky is "exactly how Stede used to be!". Episode 3 disagrees.

Ricky is some Evil Star Trek Mirror Universe version of Stede, and they have fundamental differences in their view of piracy, which feeds into the action of the tail end of Season 2: Stede wants to be part of the piracy world, but Ricky thinks he's above it. The few hours in 2x7 that Stede spends enjoying being cool in the Republic of Pirates is overall sweet (sliding past the murder, lol), not a relationship red flag or Stede being a dick. If you tried to join a group and they finally embraced you, how would you initially act? Being excited for a few hours does not mean Stede has made a forever commitment to piracy and not Ed.

But, I digress. To me, Episode 2 (along with 6, 9, and 10) is far and away the peak of Season 1. We see the crew bonding (and those unique interactions are missing in Season 2's truncated runtime), and we get a deeper look into Stede's head: his initial naivety toward violence, his insecurities, his unique captaincy style and problem solving. If I look at just his insecurities, Badminton's Ghost is Stede talking to himself (like Hornigold was vocalizing Ed's feelings in 2x3). Stede is harsh with himself about his abilities and maturity, and we even see that he took Badminton's petty body shaming in 1x1 to heart.

(Oh, I have thoughts on Stede finally being told he's pretty and then instantly dumped!)

But he continues to degrade himself.

"You're a child with a toy" Stede says to himself. Compare this to Ned Low calling him a "bumbling amateur" in 2x6. Real people voicing these thoughts (like Chauncey in 1x9) messes Stede up.

The local therapist clearly lays out the motivation behind 1x9&10, and Stede still continues with the negative self talk.

And then we get the best mantra!

Yes, baby! You can only be as good as you can be, and you deserve the world.

Stede does not banish his guilt that is haunting him, but Ed comes in at Episode 4, and any more serious feelings is all about Ed.

(Second GIF is a joke. I know it's important to Ed's character. Plz, don't be mad.)

Ed is the deuteragonist, and the story now needs to spend time establishing Ed's character and motivations. This doesn't make Stede's go away, but if you only watch Episode 4 and on, that's what it looks like. There are brief moments of Stede's vulnerability and guilt from then, but not much.

(Side note from a Midwesterner: I've spent too much time finding out if "grain tower" is colloquial for "grain silo" somewhere, and I still don't know.)

Ed and Stede just met here. Ed isn't absorbing much of Stede's comments (Stede also feels trapped, Stede has family guilt, etc), but it goes the other way, too, doesn't it? Stede is recovering from his gut-stab, they're still in a life-or-death situation, and Stede is still feeling his guilt (and just saw more guilt ghost hallucinations). Registering and internalizing what Ed is saying doesn't take priority.

And they enter their cute early relationship phase: They have fun together! They can easily talk to one another! Stede easily forgives Ed wanting to kill him!

Again: in between all the cute and fun, all the heavy stuff is about Ed. Stede deals with the aristocrats who mocks Ed. Stede is gentle with Ed's red fabric. Stede listens to Ed's past without judgment. Stede openly accepts Ed as a friend. We don't see Ed engaging with Stede in a reciprocal manner.

(I was so delighted when Stede called some of this out in 2x4.)

Stede is a few steps behind in their relationship: He doesn't know it's a romance. He doesn't know he was flirting with Ed. He's not immediately understanding what the Act of Grace was to Ed (hubby commitment!) as he's having his Nigel guilt, family guilt, and being seconds away from death swamping him all at once.

In the academy, Ed isn't even listening to Stede. He's moved onto his domestic marriage role while Stede is dealing with his demons.

With 2x7, I see people saying, "Ed was very clear in wanting to leave piracy!" If he was speaking to someone fully engaged with him, I would agree. (That also doesn't make Stede having a few hours' fun the worst thing ever.)

(Aside of what I see below: In Season 2, I see overwhelming praise of Ed and Izzy's performances and very little on Stede. This is not to disparage TW or CO, but Ed and Izzy are more in-your-face and obvious with what is going on internally in their scenes and they are nailing the drama scenes. However, Stede becomes quieter, shutting down into himself, when having high feelings, and RD's acting is very subtle and very beautiful in these moments.)

In The (First) Kiss scene, Ed is clear! He just wants to be Ed, and Ed is happy just being with Stede.

But look what Ed walked in on:

Ed is saying things, but Stede is trying to process big feelings of his own at the same time. Stede is there self soothing, still thinking about what Ed ignored him about in the bunks. "How are you handling things so well?" means Stede isn't handling it well. Ed is excited, but he (and apparently some of the audience!) is brushing off all of what Stede is saying while expecting Stede to take to heart everything that Ed is saying. (I mean, the beginning of S2 shows why Ed is so excited for this life change, but it is frustrating!)

If you only feel bad for Ed at the end of 1x9, please try to imagine Stede's perspective: suppose you have low self worth and are consumed with guilt about people you've hurt and then are seconds away from death twice, are you going to be thinking clearly and prioritizing (and recognizing) the feelings of a guy you've known for a few weeks and didn't know you were dating?

Stede has drawn inward this whole conversation. His answers turn monosyllabic, and his body language turns more and more panicy as the heavy reality of everything sets in.

Stede enjoyed The Kiss, but was this the appropriate time for him? (Like Ed enjoyed The Sex, but was that the appropriate time for him?) They aren't in sync yet, but that doesn't make one party's feelings more valid than the other's or one party evil for being a bit ahead.

With 2x7, I don't know why people thought Stede should be a mind reader and be able to quickly piece together a few statements Ed made while Stede was mentally drowning.

I think it should be noted that as of the end of 2x7, Stede is the only crew member who hasn't had mental reflection and/or therapy in Season 2. He realized Mary, Alma, and Louis didn't need him and he was in love with Ed in 1x10, but the voice calling him a child with a toy, an idiot, weak, and ugly is still there.

Continued in Part 2! (Still to come...)

[foodsies4me]

Thinking about the fact that Izzy is Robert's favourite child, Jace is Myrese's and max is favoured by both robert and myrese. Alec had to grow up not being anyone's favourite and having to know that everyday.

Everytime i think about how Alec grew up i get sad bc i just know it was so lonely (not like he could complain to izzy or jace about Izzy and Jace being favoured or him getting in trouble bc of them)

The first time someone tells alec that he's their favourite (favourite teacher maybe as i can see a trainee saying it) he tries his best not to get emotional infront of them and goes to his office just to sit bc holy shit he's someones favourite.

This prompt had me screeching immediately because I love it so much, so of course I had to write it (with the usual delay because I am a snail).

You're my favorite. Alec had never been the favored child. He learned early on he'd never be the favored child either. He wasn't smart like Izzy, he couldn't pick up any arbitrary subject and master it by the end of the week. He wasn't like Jace either, the most gifted fighter they had seen in decades if not longer. It didn't mean Alec was inadequate, he was a decent fighter, a decent strategist, a decent student. He just wasn't excellent. Everywhere his siblings excelled, Alec fell short. Decent to their greatness. Not good enough to their just right. Even Max exceeded where Alec failed - hitting milestones trainees twice his age struggle with without ever losing his easy smiles or cheeky remarks. Alec has always been as thankful for that fact as secretly envious. Thankful for it meant their dad paid attention to Izzy even as he continued to forget the rest of them existed. Thankful for it meant their mom praised Jace with the affection he so desperately craved. Thankful it would keep Max safe from the criticism his parents levied at him no matter what he did. Even when the voice grew too loud to ignore, loud enough that it ended with blood and bruises and choked-off breaths, Alec never let his siblings hear it, forbade them from hearing it. Alec promised himself he would never be a source of pain for his siblings and he would keep that promise. Even when it hurt him. Especially when it hurt him. Alec had never been the favored child. He long stopped believing he ever would be. He had been too weak, too ill, too lacking to be anything above decent. Mediocre. Not enough. Alec accepted it as his lot in life. He didn't need to be his parents' favorite. He didn't need to be anyone's favorite, he had his siblings' love and that was enough. Or so he thought. "Thank you, Alec. You're my favorite," Barika mumbles in his neck, small arms curled around his neck. He looks back at his new clothes - his new boy clothes - spread out on his bed, reading some of the slogans written on them, and wipes his cheeks with the back of his hand. He then gives him a shy grin, an expression that is so unlike the rambunctious little menace Alec has come to know and asks him if he wants to help him choose his outfit for their trip today. "Sure." Barika grins, eyes shining with joy. "You're my favorite." Alec smiles, "You're my favorite too." "Not Max?" Alec pinches Barika's nose, laughing at the amused giggle it produces. "You're all my favorite," he assures, feeling the truth behind that statement settle on his shoulders like a warm, comforting cloak. "Now, do you want to wear shorts or jeans?"

[gabichanwrites]

Imagine you have a character, a broken, vicious man who bites and spits venom even at a person he loves the most, who pushes the buttons of his love just because this toxic familiarity is all he knows, just because it's all he feels safe doing. And then his love finds another person who brings out such a different part of them, a part this character never could or maybe just long forgot how to do. He drowns in jealousy, in his bitternes, he hurts his love, he hurts his love's beloved, their crew... And finally gets what he wanted. Finally has his Blackbeard back, finally can forget about the part of Ed he can no longer reach... But suddenly Blackbeard is unpredictable even to this character.

And suddenly everything changes as he slips and can no longer even enjoy the familiar toxicity because he saw something better and kinder and selfishly wishes for it too, despite it all. And suddenly he understands people around him, people who never saw the evil in Edward, and suddenly he realizes it's his fault. All of it, just a part of it - doesn't matter. He caused this and nobody is happy, not even him.

And then, despite everything, others start to care for him. They tell him "We think you're in a toxic relationship" as if they didn't know it was him who brought Blackbeard back and they hug him tight as if he wasn't the once to sentence them to this horror and they hold his hand when he panics. They experience kindness and hope in a miserable place, maybe a glimpse of what made Blackbeard so soft for a moment there. And when everything falls apart, when he takes the final tumble in this horrible dance he has with Blackbeard, somebody is there to hold him up. Somebody is there to criticize his drinking and make him a new leg and call him their unicorn. The character is "their bastard", he is part of them. He is part of something kind and accepting and he shyly embraces the new familarity-that-might-be, even when he still insults and retreats and bottles stuff up because maybe if he seems fine he can help others, maybe in the end he can be loved in a way as kind as theirs. Maybe he can have a family.

So once they are again in danger he takes the chance and speaks boldly and captures the ominous attention of the enemy. He takes a risk for them. He takes a bullet for it. He rests in the arms of his love and tells him he's sorry even when he could never accept the other's apology. He never gets the chance to try more and forgive more and try to be forgiven more. He can only ever serve as a tool for another character, can never evolve to existing on his own, to healing on his own.

You are Izzy Hands. You are drowning in your mistakes and the toxic familiarity you're too afraid to get out of. And once you dare to try...

The show would rather have you die than give you a chance at healing and happiness.

Your death doesn't prove a point and it doesn't mean anything. It's just cruel.

[gydima]

You ever think about how there would probably be 25% fewer Izzy Hands posts if some of the people who dislike him would adjust WHERE they talk about him?

Like, I get why some people hate Izzy. No big deal that people have different opinions than me! The problem lies in beating the same dead horse IN THE IZZY HANDS TAG or in direct response to Izzy enjoyers' posts.

For anyone who hates Izzy and genuinely wants to see less about him, the solution is simple and two-pronged:

If you make a post criticizing him, tag it "Izzy Hands critical." Izzy enjoyers are far less likely to jump to his defense there than in the regular old "Izzy Hands" tag. (We may never even see it if we have that tag filtered!)

Try not to yuck someone's yum in response to Izzy-positive posts. You won't have to expend your energy in a pointless back-and-forth battle if you ignore posts by Izzy enjoyers or block us altogether if our opinions bother you overmuch.

Rest assured, we've heard MANY TIMES why Izzy is crap and people shouldn't like him. Unless you're a galaxy-brained individual with an earth-shattering new analysis, one more post/response isn't going to make us see the anti-Izzy light.

(For the record, when Izzy-critical folks say something negative about him in their OWN blogs and DON'T use the Izzy Hands main tag, I think it would behoove Izzy enjoyers to scroll on past and not engage either. No one's convincing anyone to change their opinions, let's be real.)

[suffersinfandom]

When it comes to fandom, a thing that is supposed to be fun and not that serious, I'm usually a filthy moderate. I want everyone to feel safe and heard. I'll jump through a hundred hoops to avoid conflict. I only block people who are hostile or triggering because I know being blocked is hurtful to some. I genuinely try get along with everyone, even the folks I disagree with.

In OFMD fandom, I never tag my posts with "Izzy Hands," not even when it's a strictly canonical observation or analysis. I use the "Izzy critical" tag whenever I mention the guy just in case my bias against him shows. I don't outright call him abusive when I'm writing meta because I don't want to stir up drama or tempt anyone to deny my lived experiences of abuse. On the rare occasion when I reply directly to someone I disagree with, I do everything in my power to be neutral, polite, and understanding (when people aren't being overtly racist).

And you know what? It kind of sucks! I'm not having fun!

Every day I get to see people complaining about harassment that (when they link to it or refer to it directly enough for me to figure out what they're talking about) is just... other people disagreeing with them or challenging them. I see all kinds of spite and pettiness aimed at the low-media-literacy idiots who love OFMD, season two, and Ed and Stede. People like me who love Ed are called abuse apologists who're incapable of recognizing that he did things wrong (in spite of the fact that everyone I follow does recognize that, yes, Ed did do things wrong -- we just don't think that he's a monster). I get to see people telling me why Izzy, a man who does and says things that my abusers have done and said to me, is the actual victim, or why he and Ed are soulmates who invented love, or why the show would be better if the season one antagonist who abused the indigenous lead had been centered like he deserves.

Look. I don't care if people like Izzy. That's none of my business and I'm happy to leave Izzy enjoyers alone as long as they aren't being racist (that does happen) or running my mutuals off of social media. I'm not going to hang out with or trust someone who thinks Izzy was in the right, but I'm also not going to bother them. I love not bothering people! I've been doing it since I first poked my head into the fandom in June of 2022!

But, like, If you want the fandom to get along, maybe being a spiteful bully isn't the best way to accomplish that, you know? Maybe you shouldn't call people abuse apologists or idiots who are just too stupid to understand why the show that you're in the fandom of is bad and terribly written and a piece of shit with only the most lukewarm, heterosexual (?) queer representation.

And if the person who came into my inbox and told me that I'm a Zionist bitch who should set myself on fire is reading this, log off. Book a therapist.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

It's been a hell of a day for bad takes, but I just saw one over on ao3 that legit kinda disturbed me a bit, so I just wanted to say something real quick so if this sounds like it would be a bad one for you to stumble upon by accident, too, you can just ask me and I'll DM you the info so you can block the author or whatever. Putting more specifics below the cut, tl;dr it's pretty gross, racist ooc behavior implying Ed is uncontrollably violent (to the point of Stede being angry at him for killing people, which is famously a line Ed didn't cross before the finale) and it (and this is the part that made me want to warn people) has a very graphically-described moment of Stede threatening to kill Ed if he ""hurts the crew again.""

I was just going through new fics like usual, and admittedly it's on me for not taking a closer look at the tags ("ed's toxic behavior is finally addressed" is hidden in the middle so I didn't spot it when I was lured in by the hurt/comfort and angst with a happy ending tags) and the last line of the summary was about Stede finding the words to help Ed believe how much he loves him - I have most of the Izzy ship tags filtered so this one just didn't ping any red flags for me from a glance before I clicked on it. I should've looked closer but I think this one was extreme enough it would've surprised me even if I had seen the tags that were there.

And I'm used to seeing everyday racist shit and just scrolling by, but I can't overstate enough that this one actually made me upset, because it's not just your everday canyon racism over here. This one had Ed immediately flying into this unprovoked rage state when Stede voices extremely mild criticism, makes Stede take a weird amount of concern with Ed's kraken-era behavior including being very angry with him for suddenly killing people (???), is very focused on how Ed cannot control his anger and needs to atone for how he "mutilated" Izzy, and had Stede threaten to violently and painfully hunt Ed down and kill him himself if he ever ""hurt the crew again"" (as if that was literally ever a risk).

It was just a level of extreme that I was shocked by, and technically it was properly tagged, but it was easy enough to run into if you're not paying close enough attention even when most of my filters work to get 99% of the racist stuff, so if anyone wants a link to it just let me know. I found it looking at the most recent fics, so at the time of writing this it's probably still on the front page if you look for it.

[canonizzyhours]

Hot take: Both the 'canyon' and the wider OFMD 'fandom' can turn people away from the show. This fandom's infighting is a waste of time and everyone would be happier looking for fans they agree with vs. spending hours wasting their life arguing about pointless shit. (Yes, this post is ironic, but I'm tired of moralizing, and wanted to rant.)

You as a fan are responsible for curating the community you care about and finding passion there, not endlessly posting rants about how weirdly passionate other fans are.

Fandom is just a bunch of very opinionated people who get online and try to find community and for the most part, that's okay! You consumed a piece of media and have opinions about it, but know why you're creating a post. You're not actually going to get murdered by Izzy lovers if you properly tag your Tumblr posts as Izzy-critical. For example.

I write OFMD meta, it's very easy to pop on Stede Critical if I'm discussing why I don't like aspects of his arc, or Ed-Critical for how he was written in S2. Proper tagging shows respect to Ed-focused or Stede-focused fans without clogging the tag with hate. I enjoy aspects of Izzy's character, and if I'm negative I STILL tag Izzy-critical.

Trying to claim moral superiority for 'choosing the right side' in fandom looks immature on both ends. In the end, yeah, I'm sure people in both camps were harassing people. I've got 15 Izzy-focused words on AO3 in this fandom on all branches of loving-to-hating aspects of his character. I have gotten death threats, from both camps, I get it. But those are shitty people, regardless of fandom affiliation. I don't hate an entire subgroup due to that.

Izzy having a subsect in fandom is not really that different than Ed, Stede, Olu/Jim, or hell, S2 positive fans having their own spaces and communities.

I was in fandoms for Marvel (Loki), Supernatural (Castiel) and Witcher (Jaskier). I know how prevalent some side characters can be, it's as if it's y'alls first time seeing this shit. Liking or disliking a character isn't a moral failing. THIS is the ACTUAL reason I saw people leave the fandom.

Moralizing if participating in Izzy (and TBH, Stede) fandom made you a good person or if you were 'filling AO3 with another white man'. Don't complain you don't have water if you haven't even tried to dig a well. Vice versa with only 'pure holy radical leftist non racists' holding themselves above everyone else for liking characters like Edward, Oluwande, or Jim. Why are you wasting time complaining that they aren't represented on AO3?

If you want more Archie fic? Write Archie fic. If you want Ned to get the villian arc he deserved? Do it. If you really hated Izzy and wanted him to die sooner, you have your audience, be respectful of people and their time.

But reader of this post, you are not the moderator for all content created. Why do you spend your time caring about what another ingroup is doing instead of having fun with YOUR in-group??

When this fandom dies out, my stand-out experiences will be the fond memories of what fic I created and the many friends I made along the way. Can you say the same? Or will you remember OFMD because you keyboard warrior'ed your way into not even having fun anymore?

#304.

[do-angels-dream-of-starry-seas]

hey dude, totally fine if you don't like Izzy or how people engage with him as a character, but maybe don't put a super generalizing critical post in the tag? You're talking about Izzy fans as if they're not even there, when you know they 100% are.

I am talking about how the antagonist of the show is using homophobic slurs against queer characters and general apologists of him refuse to see it and you're telling me to not post it under that tag cause those fans might be there??

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

Alright. My most recent foray into the Izzy drama has revealed to me that there is a problem in the Izzy stan community, and I love helping the less fortunate so I'm going to give the people a little crash course in how to use tumblr. Me and many of my mutuals have done some or all of the things that I'm about to show you in the interest of a more enjoyable tumblr experience. This is directed at a specific tumblr community but is universally helpful so if it breaks containment I am sorry.

We're gonna start off with the basics here. Blocking people. If you see a post you don't like. If you think a take is horrible. A person is just giving you bad vibes? HIT DA BRICKS my friends. You can never see another post from this person by clicking on their blog, clicking on the elipses, and hitting that block button. Thank you to my beloved mutual @ourflagmeansgayrights for letting me use your blog to display what I'm talking about.

I understand that some people might feel bad about blocking someone. You shouldn't tho. The person might find out and get a little salty, but you don't know them and they can't do anything about it so who cares? I personally have over 40 blogs blocked and honestly I should have more.

Next, onto something a little more challenging. filtered content. You're gonna want to go to your settings. here's a picture with the directions to the settings menu helpfully highlighted.

When you click on the settings it'll take you to a page like this

I have already scrolled down a bit. You can scroll down until you see the portions that I have ever so helpfully highlighted. You're gonna want to click the little pen icon on the far right. When you do it should look like this.

You're gonna want to type exactly what I've typed into that box, and then you're gonna want to hit that Add button. When you do it will appear at the bottom of your filtered tags list like this.

Congradulations. You don't have to look at another post that's mean to Izzy. I know I sometimes tag posts that are not that mean to Izzy as izzy critical because I know you guys will hate it and I want to spare you, so please. It's for your own good. and it takes about 20 seconds.

Finally, turning off anons. I've seen a lot of you complain about anon death threats. I get those too. I just delete them when they come in my ask box because I don't actually take them that seriously but if they're bothering you there is a way to get rid of them for good, and you are already half way there if you're in the settings menu blocking the Izzy critical tag.

On the side of the settings menu theres a little list of all your blogs. You're gonna want to select the one you don't want to get anons in. You have to do it separately for each blog but it's pretty easy.

It's gonna take you to a page where you can edit your blog. You want to scroll down until you see this

And then you just want to smack that second button. You can even smack the first if you don't want to receive questions at all, but if the anons are your problem I'd recommend the second one

Anyway, hope this helps, because literally everyone I know does some or all of these things in order to mitigate online harassment and curate our online experience. Obviously if someone really wants to harass you they're going to. Some of my mutuals with anon turned off have had people make burner accounts to message them. But the great thing about that is, you can just block the burner.

OH! I nearly forgot! There's one more thing you can do. Say you don't want to turn off anon, but you keep getting one really annoying bitch in your inbox and you suspect its the same person twice because of the affect or whatever. Guess what. If you click the three dots next to the message you can block them too!!! I've sent two nasty anons to the shadow realm this way. I would have sent more but unfortunately you cant delete the message after you do this so it leaves a number in your inbox even if it's not there anymore. I prefer to just delete them unless someone is spamming me.

Also if you don't like my tone in this post I'm giving you permission to use the information contained within this post to hit that block button babey. See you never. I'd love to be your first block. I'll pop your block cherry for you baby. It'll be so satisfying.

[chuplayswithfire]

Man, every time I see that there's some latest wrinkle in the story on the " Izzy fans get the most hate ever" discourse and I check it out, the answer is always just... the same basic shit that fans of characters of color and fans of female character s have been dealing with forever and half the time its the most basic shit.

Obviously no one should be getting anon hate, but no one WOULD receive anon hate if anon was turned off. Personally, turning off anon stopped the vast majority of the vitriol I received and all of the "death threats" (I don't take anonymous death threats all that serious tbh, whatever rocks your boat anon loser). There were a couple of accounts created specifically to get around my anon being turned off or to bother me without having skin in the game, but that seems rare and unlikely to be a repetitive problem. Turning off anon is the single most effective way of reclaiming your fandom experience.

The "don't tag hate" position has existed for as long as there have been tags on Tumblr. It's a position that I frankly think is not worth maintaining, considering that the tags are both a way to share with the wider community as well as a way to organize your own blog, and there's no way to forcibly distinguish between the two unless you're going to make custom tags for everything, which is not worth the energy for most people.

Especially when people can't even agree about what hate even is. Is hate talking about how you wish said character would die in the next season? Is hate analyzing the impact of a characters' actions? Is hate tagging the character for appearing in your art work but the art work isn't them sympathetic or happy?

The only thing people can do to have the tag experience THEYY want to see is block people whose posts they hate seeing. That's it. Attempting to control how other people use the tags is an exercise in futility.

It genuinely has me shaking my head that so many people are often talking about the horrendous abuses they experience as fans of Izzy and it's 1) the same type of anons that fans of Ed and Stede are receiving, 2) the same vaguely threatening statements from individual fans that fans of every other character sometimes receive, 3) grounded criticism of the character that the fans don't want to see.

Like... Sorry if this is your first time encountering toxic fandom but this is what every fandom is like, especially if you're a person of color or a fan of characters of color or a fan of female characters. You just need to turn off anon and block people. That's it. That's all you can do. People aren't enabling your mistreatment by continuing on with their regular blogging after advising you to turn off anon and block.

[internerdionality]

Rewatching the end of Episode 6 to get the timeline in my head for a fic, and the amount of time that Stede spends skewered to the mast is cracking me up. Cause like, the last we see of him after the duel, Ed has gone up, incredulous, to be all "you're alive and a marvel!" and the next we see, Ed is leaning over the rail saying goodbye to Izzy and it's morning and Stede is still skewered to the mast.

And then there's the funeral for Lucius' finger, which I suppose could be immediately after Izzy leaves but given that Ed is nowhere to be seen and Fang hurls the finger into the ocean without, you know looking to see if he's about to throw it smack into Izzy's face, I really lean toward it being like, at least twenty minutes and probably more like an hour or two later, and Stede is still skewered to the mast.

And even though Stede speaks up critically during the funeral and we see Stede and Roach talking in the background when Pete gives Lucius the wooden finger, the whole crew disperses after the "funeral" without any kind of plans to help Stede, because by the time Lucius finally goes "hey Stede, how you doing?" and Stede is like "I'd really like it out" they're the only ones on deck because Lucius says he has to go get someone to unskewer Stede.

Which heavily implies that either:

Literally the entire crew, including Ed, spent the whole rest of the night after the duel and a big chunk of the morning just going about their business as usual, making breakfast and planning a finger funeral and sulking or possibly fighting about Izzy leaving, without ever checking in on Stede and asking if, you know, he might want some help pulling the sword out of his gut OR

Various people did check in on Stede and offer to help earlier, and he was like "oh no, it's fine, I'm totally cool standing here with a sword through me, I don't want to get it out immediately, there's more important stuff going on, don't worry about me" and...

I honestly can't decide which option is funnier.